Neural activity patterns evoked by a spouse's incongruent emotional reactions when recalling marriage-relevant experiences

Neural evidence for long-term marriage shaping the functional brain network organization between couples

Long-term married couples have been reported to share personality and behavioural similarities, but whether long-term marriage would shape the brain is hitherto unknown. In this study, 35 pairs of long-term married couples, who have married and living together at least 30 years, were recruited, and resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine the neural correlates of long-term marriage between couples. Seven intrinsic connectivity networks were extracted using spatially constrained group independent component analysis, and the spatial similarity of each network as well as functional connectome similarity between couples were investigated respectively. The significant spatial similarities in the salience and frontoparietal networks as well as marginally significant connectome similarity were observed in long-term married couples. In addition, the marital duration showed a significantly positive correlation with the spatial similarity in the frontoparietal network and connectome similarity. The results provide objective evidence that long-term marriage would shape brain network organization, and the combination of initial personality traits and long-term common experience of the couples may be potential factors that account for similar brain network organizations between couples.

Protective factors of marital stability in long-term marriage globally: a systematic review

OBJECTIVES

In recent decades, due to the high prevalence of divorce in numerous countries and the detrimental aftermath thereof, it has become increasingly important to study the components of marital stability. The current study explored fundamental protective factors in long-term marriage through a systematic review.

METHODS

Searches for relevant publications were conducted in Embase, Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, Magiran, and Scientific Information Database from their inception through January 30, 2019. Through the keyword search, 1,706 articles were found, of which 25 articles remained after screening based on the eligibility criteria.

RESULTS

The extracted protective factors associated with marital stability in long-term marriage were classified as interpersonal and intrapersonal. Notable extracted factors included spirituality and religion, commitment, sexual relationship, communication, children, love and attachment, intimacy, and conflict resolution approach. These findings show that some aspects of relationships, such as commitment, act to preserve the pillars of marriage in critical situations, while other aspects, such as intimacy, help to construct marital identity and satisfaction.

CONCLUSIONS

The identified components of marital stability are structures that enhance a couple’s identity and sense of togetherness. Identifying the specific aspects of marital relationships that contribute to marital stability may help specialists and researchers to target specific types of marital interaction that may enhance the happiness and longevity of relationships, thereby preventing avoidable divorces.

An attachment theoretical perspective for the neural representation of close others

Recent investigations in neuroscience elucidate the neural basis of close other cognitive representations, which serve functions central to our health and happiness. Yet, there are persistent barriers to this research, including disparate research methods and the absence of a common theoretical background. The present review connects neuroimaging and attachment theory within a novel social, cognitive and affective framework. We apply attachment theory to understand why we would expect cognitive representations of close others to be different from other social neural representations. Developing reliable markers of attachment is a critical step in mapping close other neural representations. We then examine existing neuroimaging literature on close other representations, highlighting the recruitment of neural systems supporting reward, motivation and distress alleviation, in addition to the mirror neuron system, default network and salience network. We then review the methodologies of past studies, revealing a diverse array of self-report measures assessing `closeness' and social cognitive tasks that, taken together, preclude meaningful synthesis of findings. Lastly, we discuss specific behavioral measures of attachment and closeness with recommendations for the field. This attachment framework integrates brain and behavioral sciences and unites theoretical principles with empirical methods to further our understanding of how the brain represents close others.

Using Cognitive Neuroscience to Improve Mental Health Treatment: A Comprehensive Review

Mental health interventions do not yet offer complete, client-defined functional recovery, and novel directions in treatment research are needed to improve the efficacy of available interventions. One promising direction is the integration of social work and cognitive neuroscience methods, which provides new opportunities for clinical intervention research that will guide development of more effective mental health treatments that holistically attend to the biological, social, and environmental contributors to disability and recovery. This article reviews emerging trends in cognitive neuroscience and provides examples of how these advances can be used by social workers and allied professions to improve mental health treatment. We discuss neuroplasticity, which is the dynamic and malleable nature of the brain. We also review the use of risk and resiliency biomarkers and novel treatment targets based on neuroimaging findings to prevent disability, personalize treatment, and make interventions more targeted and effective. The potential of treatment research to contribute to neuroscience discoveries regarding brain change is considered from the experimental-medicine approach adopted by the National Institute of Mental Health. Finally, we provide resources and recommendations to facilitate the integration of cognitive neuroscience into mental health research in social work.

Expressive suppression and neural responsiveness to nonverbal affective cues

Optimal social functioning occasionally requires concealment of one's emotions in order to meet one's immediate goals and environmental demands. However, because emotions serve an important communicative function, their habitual suppression disrupts the flow of social exchanges and, thus, incurs significant interpersonal costs. Evidence is accruing that the disruption in social interactions, linked to habitual expressive suppression use, stems not only from intrapersonal, but also from interpersonal causes, since the suppressors' restricted affective displays reportedly inhibit their interlocutors' emotionally expressive behaviors. However, expressive suppression use is not known to lead to clinically significant social impairments. One explanation may be that over the lifespan, individuals who habitually suppress their emotions come to compensate for their interlocutors' restrained expressive behaviors by developing an increased sensitivity to nonverbal affective cues. To probe this issue, the present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan healthy older women while they viewed silent videos of a male social target displaying nonverbal emotional behavior, together with a brief verbal description of the accompanying context, and then judged the target's affect. As predicted, perceivers who reported greater habitual use of expressive suppression showed increased neural processing of nonverbal affective cues. This effect appeared to be coordinated in a top-down manner via cognitive control. Greater neural processing of nonverbal cues among perceivers who habitually suppress their emotions was linked to increased ventral striatum activity, suggestive of increased reward value/personal relevance ascribed to emotionally expressive nonverbal behaviors. These findings thus provide neural evidence broadly consistent with the hypothesized link between habitual use of expressive suppression and compensatory development of increased responsiveness to nonverbal affective cues, while also suggesting one explanation for the suppressors' poorer cognitive performance in social situations. Moreover, our results point to a potential neural mechanism supporting the development and perpetuation of expressive suppression as an emotion regulation strategy.